


My Place Is Here With You

by The Terror of My Ways (sealandreich)



Series: Winden ’86–’87 [1]
Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealandreich/pseuds/The%20Terror%20of%20My%20Ways
Summary: 1971. In a single night, H.G. Tannhaus lost one Charlotte and gained another. In a single night he lost everything and was given everything. He does not know how to make sense of it. He fears that he will never feel anything but sorrow from then on.1987. Charlotte doesn't know who she is any more or who she's supposed to be. H.G. Tannhaus does his best to comfort her.
Relationships: Charlotte Doppler & H.G. Tannhaus
Series: Winden ’86–’87 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001136
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Doppler-Tannhaus Collection





	My Place Is Here With You

**Author's Note:**

> In case you’ve forgotten it already, here’s that conversation between Charlotte and HG:  
> [Dark S3:E5 Tannhaus and Charlotte.](//imgur.com/a/kmQRRL3)  
> 

**November 8, 1971**

H.G. Tannhaus couldn’t prevent himself from crying, not after hearing what happened to his family. At this, the infant in his arms began to cry too, as HG had feared.

“I'm sorry I can’t comfort you, little one,” he said sadly. 

The women had left, content to leave this baby with him, a stranger. Why him? How did they know what would happen to his family? 

He looked at the pocket watch. One of the women had put it in his hand right before they left. It was odd for an infant to have a pocket watch. HG read the inscription, and it shook him to the core. Truly, it was a miracle that he did not drop the child in his arms. In a single night, he had lost a Charlotte and gained a Charlotte. One dead and one alive; one Charlotte for another.

Had this been some twisted sort of … trade or exchange? How could such a thing happen naturally? There must be some greater force at work. He considered himself a man of science, but this was beyond him. 

Was this how Job felt, when God supposedly restored him to prosperity? When everything Job had was taken from him, his seven sons and his three daughters died. When Job was restored to fortune, he went on to have seven sons and three daughters, to replace the children he lost. But people are not replaceable; they are not interchangeable.

The infant in his arms, this other Charlotte, she cried too. She cried softly. Did she cry because she could sense his grief? Did she cry because her mother had abandoned her—simply given her away to a stranger? Surely one of those women had to be this child's mother. Had this other Charlotte ever known the love of a mother or father? Whether she had or not, it was something she would never know again. It was something HG could never recreate for her, try as he might.

HG looked down at the other Charlotte he held in his arms. Softly, he said, “We both have good reasons to weep. Here we are, bereft of family, bereft of understanding.”

They said that everything would be taken from him. And so it happened. But, there was hope. They also said he would be given everything. This other Charlotte. No, he should not think this way. It was unfair to this Charlotte to expect her to be everything.

HG hoped that his own sadness wouldn’t weigh down this child’s heart as well. This overpowering sadness he carried now was a sadness strong enough to kill a man, strong enough to break a man. How could he expose a child to this? She would drown in it, would she not? He couldn’t even pull himself together to comfort a crying infant. How could he raise a child?

“Things like this don’t happen without a reason,” he told himself. He had to try. He could not lose the will to live, not now that this tiny human being in his arms depended on him.

He wished he could feel some semblance of joy in this moment. A child had come into his life. But HG did not feel anything close to joy. He was despondent and desolate. 

* * *

It took HG till ’74 to finally come to the conclusion that he had not made a mistake in deciding to raise Charlotte. He loved her greatly; there was no problem there. She meant everything to him. He worried that he wasn’t capable of raising a child. He worried that he would always be so sad, that it would prevent him from being a happy, loving guardian. He worried that he’d end up comparing this Charlotte to his natural granddaughter or to his son Marek, and as a result, hold Charlotte to an unfair standard. 

Early on, he’d nearly cry whenever he looked at Charlotte’s face—because he was looking not at the Charlotte he knew, but at a different Charlotte. Initially, he also thought of his natural granddaughter as being “his Charlotte” as opposed to the Charlotte he had now, “the other Charlotte” or “a different Charlotte.” And HG hated himself for these things. How could he look into this child’s eyes and cry, how could he consider this child to be “the other”? 

Thankfully, he was soon able to think about Charlotte as “his Charlotte” rather than “the other Charlotte.” But his worries never went away completely.

After several years, a dream began to haunt him. Usually it would strike around November. Marek, Sonja, and their Charlotte would return. HG’s joy would soon turn to dread when he realized that Charlotte, his Charlotte, wasn’t there. The worst moment was always when he wondered if he had changed the past, somehow; that he was the reason Charlotte was gone from his life forever. He had lost this Charlotte too.

* * *

**September 23, 1987**

“I’m back,” said Charlotte, sounding tired and defeated. H.G. Tannhaus quickly got up and hugged her. Charlotte sighed and said, “You weren’t worried, were you?”

“Just a little,” said HG. This was a lie; he’d been more than a little worried. For years he had known that he must have that conversation with Charlotte, and yet he still botched it.

“I’m not stupid or reckless, you know,” said Charlotte, pulling away from the hug. She set her bag down, then turned back to face him. After a long sigh, she said, “Were you just waiting for a bad day to spring this on me?”

“I knew we’d have to have this conversation eventually, and I’d been meaning to tell you for a while, but I didn’t know how. You brought up wishing you could turn back time, and I saw an opportunity,” said HG. Charlotte didn’t look satisfied with this explanation. “But,” he admitted, “in hindsight, I should have told you another time.”

Charlotte got up on her usual perch at the end of the work table. “Why didn’t you just say—what were their names, my not-parents?”

“Marek and Sonja.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that Marek and Sonja were my real parents? Wouldn’t that have been easier? How would I know the truth?”

HG had thought about this, but he decided against it. He took in a deep breath and began to explain. “Well, you’re so bright that you would have figured out something didn’t add up. And why shouldn’t I be honest with you? But … also … I couldn’t do that to the first Charlotte.”

Charlotte furrowed her brows in confusion.

“Nobody knows that she ever existed. Nobody knows that there was once another Charlotte. I’ve had to act as if there never was another Charlotte, but … it’s far from easy. I felt like I needed somebody else to know the truth.” HG looked at Charlotte nervously, trying to gauge her reaction.

Charlotte nodded slightly but said nothing for several long seconds. Finally she said, “How did you make sense of what happened? And why did you raise me as your granddaughter?”

That was a very good question. Charlotte kept staring at him, waiting for an answer. He’d have to say something. “Well, I … there was no point in trying to make sense of it, not then. I knew that I had no one else left, and you had no one either. Wherever you came from and however you got to me—it didn’t matter. I could not abandon a child.”

That answer didn’t seem to satisfy Charlotte. Finally, she said, “Who am I supposed to be? The dead Charlotte’s replacement? If there was another Charlotte Tannhaus, then who am I?”

Gently, HG said, “You don’t have to be anybody else; just be yourself. You are not a replacement. You are your own person. You happen to share a name with another person, but what of it? Think of it like that; you were named after someone, but you’re not expected to be the same as your namesake. You have every right to consider yourself my granddaughter. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t related to me. I love you all the same.”

“I don’t know my real name. I don’t know who my family is. I don’t know my own birthdate, so I don’t even know how old I really am. These are things I should know, and I don’t, and it really bothers me,” said Charlotte, her voice beginning to quaver. She was fighting a battle against her emotions and she was losing.

HG tried to think of something to say.

Charlotte continued. “It wasn’t even a fair trade either. I’m only one person; I can’t make up for three whole people.”

“No, there was no ‘trade.’ You had nothing to do with their death. And you don’t have to ‘make up for three whole people’ either.”

“But none of this would’ve happened if they had lived. How am I supposed to enjoy my life knowing that three people had to die for it to be like this? Don’t you think those women killed your family?”

“What?” said HG. He hadn’t considered that possibility. Why would two women be so determined to have him raise Charlotte that they would kill three people? Charlotte was falling apart; he had no time to think about what to say. He shouldn’t still be thinking; he should say something, anything. This was tearing her soul to pieces. Had he learned nothing since his confrontation with Marek?

Charlotte thankfully ignored HG’s silence and kept talking. “They must’ve killed your family. How else would they have known that you’d lose your family? I don’t want to be the reason that three people died!”

There was so much anguish in her voice that it instantly snapped HG back to the present. “No, no, you aren’t the reason they died. You have no blood on your hands. None of this is your fault. I doubt those women were so determined to have me raise you that they would kill three people. I looked into the accident back then, and all signs pointed to it being just that, an accident.”

“I’m stuck with an identity that isn’t my own. Nothing makes sense and I need it to make sense and I can’t function like this!” said Charlotte, as she broke down.

He knew he wasn’t doing much to comfort her, but he had to keep trying. “Charlotte, Charlotte, there’s nothing wrong with being emotional sometimes. It doesn’t mean that you can’t function. It’s okay—”

“I can’t function like this and we don’t need to argue about it,” she said over him. Then she sort of threw herself sideways and hit the floor with a loud thud. 

“Charlotte?”

“I’m making a point,” Charlotte bawled, still on the floor, not moving. “I can’t live like this.”

HG was starting to panic now. Charlotte rarely got this emotional, so he had no clue what to do in a situation like this. Whenever she was upset, she’d usually just go brood in the woods. Or she might brood in her room, but she preferred to do her brooding in the woods. And now she was so … disconsolate.

She continued to rave, “I’m losing it, I’m losing it, no—I’ve already lost it. What has become of me? Why is life like this? Why am I like this? Will it always be like this?”

HG got down on the floor next to her and had her in an embrace in seconds. Trying, with great difficulty, to sound calm, he tried to reassure her. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’ll be alright.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I hope so,” she said, as she cried on his shoulder.

HG felt like he might break down and cry too, after seeing his precious Charlotte in this state. “Life won’t be like this forever,” he said to her. “We’ll get through this, I promise. You are stronger than you think.”

HG hesitated before he continued, wondering if he should say what he was going to say. But had he ever said too much? No, it was always too little, too much that had not been said. So he would say it.  
“Once, I was overcome with despair. I felt as if my heart had been deadened forever, and I was convinced I would never again feel anything but sorrow.”

Now Charlotte drew back and looked at him with concern.

Looking at her, he said, “But thankfully, I could not have been more wrong. You are my pride and joy, Charlotte. I love you more than anything else.”

He saw Charlotte smile slightly, but then her smile faded. “It must have been awful, not having any time to mourn your family before I was brought to you.”

“No, not awful. For your sake, I had to continue on with life. That’s what saved me.”

Charlotte then said, “If it sounded like I wished none of this ever happened, that’s not exactly right. I am glad that I was brought to you. I just wish that it didn’t happen in such a sad way.”

HG nodded. “In an ideal world, my family would be with me, alive and well. But my family would include not only Marek, Sonja, and the other Charlotte, but you as well. Unfortunately, such a world does not exist. Where would you be if the past changed? It would be as if I never knew you.”

“What about heaven?” said Charlotte. “Do you believe in it?”

“Yes,” said HG. “Yes, I do.”

“We’ll all be there together one day.”

HG smiled. “Yes, yes we will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> I felt so sad realizing that in the origin world, HG wouldn’t have known our Charlotte. Do you think he would be able to sense that there’s someone near and dear to him that isn’t there, like in his dream where Marek and Sonja return?


End file.
